Ode to the Deep Freeze

Oh Deep Freeze
My friend
With delectable delights
To satisfy cravings
And homesickness fight

You help us stop bugs
From spoiling our meals
And chocolate from melting
In heat that's unreal

Ice cream, chocolate chips
Bacon, bananas
Tortilla mix, cake mix
Pecans from Grandma's

Otter Pops, Easter candy
Emergency Indian food
To feed local guests
Who find our food not so good

Craisins and raisins
Strawberry jam
Yeast and roast beast
From the meat man

And now that it's hot
You make ice for our water
Since it comes from the tap
Steaming hotter and hotter

But the generator is broken
And there's no electricity
So goodbye freezer contents
We barely ate thee.

Jet Lag

It's 11:48 pm and Isaac just emerged from bed ready to go! He came downstairs and explained to me how our new power strip is configured for the computer and told me about the new friend he and Daddy made at the electrical shop. Rich is asleep on the couch in his shirt and tie after coming back from District Conference. Graham is in his high chair throwing bits of banana and pizza onto the floor (he woke up from his too-long jet-lagged nap a few hours ago). Russell is still asleep upstairs on the hard tile floor and I don't dare move him because he has underwear on!

The second night we were here the kids went to bed at 6 pm and woke up at 1 am. The third night we took a long nap during the day and stayed up until 1 am to avoid that early waking. The fourth night they went to bed early and woke up at 2 am! Now we're on the fifth night and it's not looking so good because everyone took long naps and is waking up just now.

Okay, so here's what Isaac has to say . . .

Now he has nothing to say . . .

Isaac: "Why did you make those dots? What are those dots for?"

Me: "To show that I"m thinking . . ."

Isaac has been enthusiastically helping around the house to fill his wallet with rupees. He is a man with a mission. Some kids are scared to start kindergarten. Not Isaac. Any fear he could feel is swallowed up by his total excitement to eat lunch in the cafeteria and pay for it out of his wallet with his own money. So he has picked up numerous toys, ran errands, helped his brothers, and even memorized articles of faith . . . anything to earn an extra paise for the cause of school lunch. I hope he's not disappointed. I've told him he has to eat five bites of vegetables every day in order to eat the ice cream and I'm just going to trust him to do it. The beauty of Isaac's little exacting personality (and I sincerely hope this doesn't disappear as he grows older) is that I'm pretty sure he'll do it.

The stupendous news of the day is that Russell is on the fast track to being fully potty trained, thanks to wonderful Aunt Katie. Katie got us started on the timer method. At first Russell wanted to set it for "free" [three], but Katie convinced him to go for 60, which is like two threes. We set the timer for 1 hour and if we can convince him to go sit on that potty when the timer goes off, the Spider Man underwear stays dry!! He always makes a big to-do about WHICH Spider Man underwear he will wear and then throws all his clothes around looking for a "cool shirt with cool things on the back and the front" and equally cool pants. Usually he ends up putting on winter pajamas or rummages in the back of his shelf for some cozy warm long-sleeved shirts perfect for the sweltering heat! And then another favorite potty training antic is to choose one bathroom to go potty in, then another to wash his hands in, and then inform me that he doesn't like the soap in that bathroom while he moons everyone in the house. Loads of fun. But I am crossing my fingers that all those pull-ups I bought before I left the USA will have to be donated to someone else's potty training efforts!

Graham is doing much better after his whirlwind of sicknesses in the USA. He is crawling around everywhere, cruising up and down steps, and eating spicy Indian food voraciously. I haven't weighed him, but he feels a bit heavier when I lift him. He and I have started taking walks in the mornings at around 5:30, thanks to jet lag, and he seems to love wandering around our neighborhood watching this strange world we live in wake up.

In other news . . . we finally got a painter to come give us an estimate, and thank goodness because it was 1/4 less than the last guy. He got to work right away and the wall in our living room that was all patched up from the a/c work for months is now a lovely mint green. I picked the color on a whim and it doesn't really match anything else, but it's kind of fun.

Other big news is that despite all the well-meaning advice of everyone but Rich I chopped all my hair off. Actually a French hair stylist chopped it all off. I told him I was tempted to chop it all off but had decided not to. So he cut it chin length and then decided it didn't look good that length and I should cut it much shorter. Rich promises it looks great, but the jury is still out on my end. As I look around at people here I think it looks a lot like the haircuts the young Indian men are sporting. When I have the patience I will upload some photos.

Anyways, that's the news from New Delhi. We miss ya'll!

A Good Day

Rich told me several days ago that I need to write a positive blog. Well, I had a pretty decent day today, so here's all the positive, fabulous things that happened today:

1. Even though the high temperature today was 114 degrees, we managed to stay cool all day, thanks to car A/C, swimming pools, and generators. We are so blessed.

2. Isaac and I mowed the lawn together this morning. It felt so normal and suburban to do such a thing. And a little physical exercise is always a good thing!

3. Umesh, our handyman, showed up and fixed a bunch of things that were bugging me--a leaky toilet, a screen door that wouldn't stay shut, a broken light, and an outlet that kept frying multiplugs (literally . . . last night it was sizzling). When he shows up, Umesh is the greatest! Perhaps the greatest part about all of this is that I delegated to Sarita the job of calling him, waiting for him, and directing him. She did a superb job arranging it all.

4. I knew we would be gone all day but I had enough foresight to leave instructions with Sarita to make dinner for tomorrow (Sunday). So I don't have to cook and we have enough food I could even invite someone over.

5. Before bed we all knelt in a row on Isaac's bed and Russell volunteered to say the prayer ("because I in the middle!"). He always goes on and on and we can't catch it all, but he is so sincere and reverent. Most of tonight's prayer revolved around Grandma and Grandpa and trains. I think he blessed the food too. But so sweet.

6. Graham tried tofu rolled in wheat germ today and he liked it! He's also been eating graham crackers in the car when we're on the go and he loves them.

7. I hired a driver named Roy Issac today who can start Monday, speaks English, has good references and experience and will work for a reasonable salary! After having major communication and navigation barriers to lumber over today with my current driver, this will be a welcome relief. And he doesn't need a place to live, so that means one less person living here to cause trouble. Hooray! Now I can go explore the city more without worrying about getting hopelessly lost and hopefully start sending the driver out on some of my errands. Blessed again. What a relief. And Isaac is thrilled that we will have a driver named Mr. Issac and we also know Isaac Isaac Pritchett.

8. We went to a birthday party for Isaac's classmate Charlie at the British High Commission Lounge. It wasn't as formal as it sounded on the invitation, our kids didn't make any scenes, and I wasn't too socially awkward and chatted with some interesting people I hadn't met yet--a woman from Peru and some Japanese new mothers, and an American heading off to Moscow or Singapore.

9. Sister Pritchett from our branch invited us to ACSA (the American Embassy club). We had hamburgers, fries, root beer, M&M's, and swam in a wonderfully shaded pool and Isaac got to walk their dog Jaya (he likes dogs now since he's spent some time with her). The Pritchetts have been so good to us. Brother Pritchett wants to go back to the USA to teach economics at Harvard soon, but we're hoping they decide to stay.

10. Rich is in Taiwan on business but we have talked to him several times today. I also talked to Dad in New Zealand. What a blessing our mobile phones and phone networks are! I am happy to hear Mom is also a little better from whatever disease she caught in Delhi and that Dad survived the earthquake that hit Tonga while he was there for work. Blessed again.

So there you have it, Rich . . . a completely positive blog.

"Madam, *#@!$!!"

So the other night while Rich was at a meeting the kids were in bed, all was quiet, and I was chatting online with Nelee. "What's up?" she said. "Not much here," I said. "NuSkin is doing layoffs," she said, "so I better go." About two minutes later, the doorbell rang and I opened it to find the guard saying "Madam, *#@!$! [something in Hindi beyond what I've learned in my 10 classes]." And I (of course, as usual) looked at him blankly, and he, exasperated, motioned for me to follow him. We walked together to the electrical box which just happened to have loads of smoke coming out the top and a fire inside!

I called Umesh, our baby-faced electrician who comes nearly every day these days. I then tried to call Rich, got no answer, so I text messaged the following: "So there's a fire in the electrical box. Umesh is coming in 20 minutes. I may be in NZ by then." For those of you who don't know, NZ is New Zealand, where my Momma happens to live right now. It was one of those moments. Actually though, I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing. It was immediately funny to me unlike other tense moments I've faced in India. This one was just so over the top it was all I could do to laugh! The gravity of the situation became a bit more real when the power went out (which made the fire finally stop!).

I wish I'd taken a picture of the actual fire. I thought of it immediately, but the guard was so upset I thought it might make him more distressed if I ran inside to get my camera. Anyway, when Umesh arrived I started shooting pictures.

This first one shows the blackened wall where the fire was burning.


Umesh the Electrician and Milap the Driver trying to figure out how to get the power back on.


This is how things actually looked without the flash. The power was out after all! Luckily the walls in the house are all made of concrete so the fire stayed contained! I'm currently on a quest to find a fire extinguisher, but it's slow going, as usual. . . After this particular power crisis we lived on minimal power (no water heaters, no microwave, no A/Cs) for two days.

Isaac's Still Life Photo Essay

I don't want to ruin your own personal artistic interpretation of his photos, so I'll let them speak for themselves.